Maz Compton reveals the brutal way she found out she was getting sacked from 2Day FM

This post was first published on news.com.au on 10 October 2017. See the original here.

MAZ Compton has opened up about the brutal way in which she found out she was getting replaced on radio by Rove McManus and Sam Frost.

The 2Day FM breakfast show in Sydney is considered by some to be the poisoned chalice of Australian radio ever since Kyle and Jackie O defected to KIIS FM at the end of 2013 and took most of their listeners with them.

Compton and her co-host Dan Debuf agreed to host the 2Day FM breakfast show in 2015 after Jules Lund, Merrick Watts and Sophie Monk’s breakfast show failed in the year before.

Speaking to Craig Bruce on the Game Changers: Radio podcast, Compton explained how she was hosting the Hit Network’s national drive when she was pretty much forced to take the breakfast gig in Sydney.

“From what I know, you guys had offered Hamish and Andy their drive show back and so what choice did I have?” she told Bruce.

“It was: ‘Can you do Sydney breakfast or there isn’t a job for you.’”

As soon as she said yes, Compton struggled to deal with the pressure that came along with the high profile job.

“I took the weight of the world on my shoulders,” she said.

“I was carrying this load of: ‘I’ve got to succeed or I’m letting everyone down. If this doesn’t work I’m letting down Dan [Debuf], all of our producers, my manager who had sadly passed away months before ... I’m letting down my family.’

“I felt like I was letting everyone down.”

The pressure only got worse as the show struggled to made a dent in the radio ratings during the year but despite the disappointing results, their radio bosses continued to back them both behind the scenes and in the press.

That’s why Compton and her co-host were so shocked when they found out after just 10 months into the job that they were getting replaced.

“I had just gotten off an international flight,” Compton told Bruce during the podcast about how she learnt of her impending sacking.

“So I got off the plane and I turned on my phone and Dan had sent me a text and I think the text said: ‘LOL,’ and it was a link to a newspaper article about how Rove McManus was taking over the Sydney breakfast show.

“I thought, that’s funny, because that’s my job ... And then I got a phone call at 10 o’clock that morning telling me that I was no longer doing the breakfast show the following year.”

It got worse though. Dan and Maz still had to remain on air for another six weeks even though it was public knowledge they were getting the boot.

“I have a relationship analogy with what I went through,” Compton said.

“If you can imagine, I’m in a relationship and I’m 110 per cent committed to the relationship and the other person goes: ‘Hey I’m so sorry, but I’m going to see someone else in six weeks, so can we keep sleeping together?’

“I had to still get on air for the next six weeks and do it and then finally get dumped. That was a longwinded way to end things, because you have to be professional and that’s the way things work.”

Fast forward to 2017 and Compton now owns two gyms and has released an e-book called Unedited: This Is What Happens When the Microphones Are Off.

So how does she feel about the radio industry now?

“I just think radio is a bubble,” she told Bruce.

“It’s an awesome bubble to be in ... But it really isn’t going to change the world that much.

“Everyone will probably leave radio one day and have that epiphany and go: ‘Why did I care that much?’”